5.1.9 Server-Side Help

MySQL Server supports a HELP
statement that returns online information from the MySQL Reference
manual (see Section 13.8.3, “HELP Syntax”). The proper operation of this
statement requires that the help tables in the
mysql database be initialized with help topic
information, which is done by processing the contents of the
fill_help_tables.sql script.

If you install MySQL using a binary or source distribution on
Unix, help table content initialization occurs when you run
mysql_install_db. For an RPM distribution on
Linux or binary distribution on Windows, content initialization
occurs as part of the MySQL installation process.

If you upgrade MySQL using a binary distribution, help table
content is not upgraded automatically, but you can upgrade it
manually. Locate the fill_help_tables.sql
file in the share or
share/mysql directory. Change location into
that directory and process the file with the
mysql client as follows:

shell> mysql -u root mysql < fill_help_tables.sql

You can also obtain the latest
fill_help_tables.sql at any time to upgrade
your help tables. Download the proper file for your version of
MySQL from http://dev.mysql.com/doc/index-other.html. After
downloading and uncompressing the file, process it with
mysql as described previously.

If you are working with Bazaar and a MySQL development source
tree, you must use a downloaded copy of the
fill_help_tables.sql file because the source
tree contains only a “stub” version.